The Choice To Have A Home Birth

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michelle Van Norman on May 12, 2009 at 9:12am

With my first son i was induced and after pushing for 3 hrs was taken in for a c-section. I later learned if i was able to move during labor or pushed in a different position other than flat on my back he would have been born vaginally. I felt like i wasn't a mom he didn't come the way he was supposed to. I started doing research from that day on VBAC's, midwives and homebirth. I got pregnant a second time and figured a different dr and hospital would bring about a different outcome. Boy was i right. I begged my dr until the day he scheduled the repeat c-section to allow me to have a VBAC. No such luck and boy did my son and i pay for that. He was delivered at 37 1/2 weeks and asperated blood. He was taken to a different hospital because they had a beter NICU. I had seen him for 5 min the day he was born. My poor husband was going between 2 hospitals to see our son and come back and stay with me. It was horrific to hear mom's with their babies while mine was taken from me. He spent 10 days on a ventilator had 6 different chest tubes and spent 3 weeks in the NICU. I didnt get to hold him till he was 2 weeks old. Didn't get to nurse him until he was almost 3 weeks. He never nursed because he was used to being forced fed. I had the worst baby blues for months after that . I never got to really bond with him. I was to worried about wether he would make it home to just fall in love with him. When my husband and i decided to try for a third we both knew from the get go that a hospital birth was out of the question. A Dr in the NICU told my husband if we decided to have another c-section there was a 60% chance that baby would end up the same way as my son. No way were we taking that chance again. Luckily before i got pregnant i found the most amazing midwife. She reassured me that there was nothing wrong with me or my body. We decided right then and there we would do a home birth in the water. On Dec 31st around 3pm I started having surges. I wouldn't believe it was real since i had been having them on and off for a while. At about 2am i called my midwife and doula they could tell by my tone my daughter was coming. I got in the birth tub and after 18hrs my daughter slid into this world. her eyes were open and she was so alert. I only pushed for 26min and had no tearing whats so ever. SHe was 7lbs and 10oz. She was beautiful and she was mine. I was able to nurse her within the first hour and she never left my side from that moment on. It was the most amazing and impowering moment in my life. I wish every woman would experience this with their first becaus i can promise they would all do it over and over again. My daughter is only 4 months and i already want to go through labor again because it was so amazing. Call me crazy but i loved the whole experience.

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Permalink Reply by Angela on May 12, 2009 at 1:21pm

I had my daughter in the hospital. I was 3 weeks late and getting browbeaten to induce. I refuse for 2 1/2 of those weeks. After my bag ripped and I didn't go into labor, I let them induce me. I did have a fully natural, vaginal birth (no drugs of any kind besides the pitocin) but in the process, I realized that I could not have the birth I wanted in the hospital (they said they were open to it, but they really were not). I knew the moment that I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child, I would have him at home. I loved the fact that I was given the freedom to do what my body told me. No one bothered me during labor, I was comfortable in my own surroundings, and my doctor and midwife gave me the power to know what I needed to do and when I needed to do it. With my 3rd child, I chose a midwife and had an even better experience. I would have any other children at home, no questions asked.

The difference between having a home birth with doctors/midwives who believe in the power and knowledge of a woman's body and the "modern medicine" doctors who believe labor and delivery is a horrible affliction that must be controlled with drugs and all other kinds of (needless, usually) interventions is night and day.

I have never regretted giving birth at home.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy Miller on May 12, 2009 at 7:31pm

Wow Michelle, what an amazing story. I assume your second son is doing well now and you have bonded? THanks for sharing your story. Bless your heart.

Michelle Van Norman said:

With my first son i was induced and after pushing for 3 hrs was taken in for a c-section. I later learned if i was able to move during labor or pushed in a different position other than flat on my back he would have been born vaginally. I felt like i wasn't a mom he didn't come the way he was supposed to. I started doing research from that day on VBAC's, midwives and homebirth. I got pregnant a second time and figured a different dr and hospital would bring about a different outcome. Boy was i right. I begged my dr until the day he scheduled the repeat c-section to allow me to have a VBAC. No such luck and boy did my son and i pay for that. He was delivered at 37 1/2 weeks and asperated blood. He was taken to a different hospital because they had a beter NICU. I had seen him for 5 min the day he was born. My poor husband was going between 2 hospitals to see our son and come back and stay with me. It was horrific to hear mom's with their babies while mine was taken from me. He spent 10 days on a ventilator had 6 different chest tubes and spent 3 weeks in the NICU. I didnt get to hold him till he was 2 weeks old. Didn't get to nurse him until he was almost 3 weeks. He never nursed because he was used to being forced fed. I had the worst baby blues for months after that . I never got to really bond with him. I was to worried about wether he would make it home to just fall in love with him. When my husband and i decided to try for a third we both knew from the get go that a hospital birth was out of the question. A Dr in the NICU told my husband if we decided to have another c-section there was a 60% chance that baby would end up the same way as my son. No way were we taking that chance again. Luckily before i got pregnant i found the most amazing midwife. She reassured me that there was nothing wrong with me or my body. We decided right then and there we would do a home birth in the water. On Dec 31st around 3pm I started having surges. I wouldn't believe it was real since i had been having them on and off for a while. At about 2am i called my midwife and doula they could tell by my tone my daughter was coming. I got in the birth tub and after 18hrs my daughter slid into this world. her eyes were open and she was so alert. I only pushed for 26min and had no tearing whats so ever. SHe was 7lbs and 10oz. She was beautiful and she was mine. I was able to nurse her within the first hour and she never left my side from that moment on. It was the most amazing and impowering moment in my life. I wish every woman would experience this with their first becaus i can promise they would all do it over and over again. My daughter is only 4 months and i already want to go through labor again because it was so amazing. Call me crazy but i loved the whole experience.

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Permalink Reply by Angela York (Yamamoto) on May 13, 2009 at 11:41am

My husband and I are expecting our second in a few short weeks. We are planning another home water birth with a lay midwife. Our first birth was so empowering that we trained to teach the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth (www.bradleybirth.com) and one day would like to become a midwife when our children are older.

Our decision for a homebirth with our first was not an easy one. I was very much taught that doctors know all about the human body & it's processes. When we found out we were expecting I started interviewing local OB's & midwives. The more questions we asked the more hesitant we began to feel that birth was going to be more of a procedure. Feeling like I would have to settle, a friend asked me to interview a lay midwife. I was not to keen on the idea of homebirth but I figured that it was just an interview not a commitment. I scheduled an appointment and brought my 4 pages of questions. I was super impressed by her knowledge, care & concern for me as a woman, experience and skill. She was the only midwife that regularly had multiples and could do breech! Doctors in our area wouldn't even do that but recommend C-Sections. After much thought & discussion, my husband and I decided we'd try a homebirth. Not having a high pain tolerance, we took the Bradley Method® to learn how to birth naturally. When the day finally arrived, we had a wonderful labor & birth. I gave birth to a 9 pound girl with no meds or interventions!!! It was awesome!! Thanks to the Bradley Method® and our wonderful birth team of midwives, our dream for a natural childbirth was achieved. Now with our second, we are ready to do this journey once more and are extremely excited!

Research your options, Know what they are. If you don't know your options, you don't have any. Be confident. Be empowered. Be Safe...Natural Childbirth

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Permalink Reply by Shanna on May 13, 2009 at 4:47pm

My choice to homebirth was made before the movie BOBB came out. I did watch it this pregnancy and it definitely made me feel more confident and excited about my decision.

The birth with my daughter was not what I had wanted! I wanted a natural birth, but I didn't really think anything of it. I was induced. MY doctor just set the date, he didn't even tell us any information about it. I had just gotten the 24 hour urine test results back.. protiens were pretty high. My bp was also moderately high so DH and I were worried.. we trusted our doctor.

I went in on sunday night. Got the IV, and the monitors, and the pitocin. Things weren't too bad. I had a nurse who wanted me to lay on my back because the baby wasn't cooperating for the fetal heartrate monitor. She wasn't very nice. Monday morning though, things went bad. My doctor broke my water without my consent, and inserted an internal contraction monitor after I said no. This threw me into a violent transition. I went from 3 cm to pushing in 2 hours. I caved about 30 min after my water was broken. It was awful. I couldn't move, breathe, or think. I hated it. I recieved 1/2 a dose of nubain, that worked for 30 min. Then it was still bad... The nurses said I wasn't having the baby before 12. It was around 9 am... at 944 Becka was born. The nurses were telling me I was pushing wrong, my OB got annoyed because they called him before I even began crowning, it wasn't nice. They didn't allow DH to cut the cord and it was just not what I wanted. :(

So I started looking into other options. I knew a hospital wasn't going to happen again. I joined a wonderful group on Cafemom and just learned a lot, and grew as a women. I researched and found out that I wanted and was going to have a homebirth: no matter what.

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Permalink Reply by Talina of Harvest of Daily Life on May 13, 2009 at 6:11pm

Lack of control over what they do to me is one of the main reasons I choose to not birth in a hospital. If I found one that was open to respecting my wishes and working WITH me to ensure a safe labor/ delivery I would totally be there.

Problem was in my research I found that the hospitals near me have certain policies surrounding the use of IV's and so on. Nothing I wanted was possible because of their own fears of lawsuit or because of rules designed to protect them.

What really kills me is that we are the consumers! We pay for insurance which pays these hospitals for our births but we have no say in how we are treated.

I am gladly paying the $4000+ out of pocket to birth my way, outside the hospital. Insurance companies and hospitals need to wake up and if enough women take their birthing business elsewhere they will.

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Permalink Reply by Nicola Noel on May 14, 2009 at 7:45am

Educate, empower and inform!!!!!!!! This is how we should all make decisions mamas! Hospital, home, intervention, no intervention...arm yourself and make an informed decision! I am a homebirth mama....I decided to have my first child at home nearly 10 years ago at 20 years old. I accompanied a family member in the hospital as she laboured with her first child and to say it was a traumatic event is a huge understatement! She was not educated and believed that she did not need to ask questions or be informed. I won't go into the details because they are so numerous and sounds like a horror story. I chose homebirth because I did not want that kind of experience and I wanted to have a private, intimate and peaceful experience for my son. It was amazing and wonderful...a rite of passage for me! I brought my son into the world while empowering myself and preparing myself to be a single parent. (at the time)
My next birth was last July (2008) as I gave birth at home to boy/girl twins! My husband(recently married) was by my side along with midwives and family. My son (now 9.5 years old) was in bed with us as his brother and sister came into this world. The twins were 7lbs2oz & 7lbs3oz and I was one week and one day over due.
Of course each birth story has many more details and exciting memories...I could write a book! Along with these experiences came a lot of controversy from doctors whom were truly not educated on homebirth and believe so very strongly in thier med-school statistics. That's why I think BoBB is so important...it gives real stats about all births in many countries and opinions from prominent, professioanal people.
These births were safe, are safe and considered the norm in many other countries!!! My body is stronger and more knowledgable than any doctor, hospital or statistic!!!! I know this now only because of my children....Aden, Kaya & Nora! I love you!

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Permalink Reply by Tina Griffin on May 14, 2009 at 8:11am

I've never had a traumatic birth, but have had varying levels of medical interventions from none to almost everything barring c-sec in my 5 hospital births. I would still describe all of them as "good births" however over the course of 20 years of having babies my views of childbirth have changed as have my needs. With my 6th baby I wanted a homebirth and was not going to back down.

My homebirth was the best experience I've ever had and the most gentle and relaxing birth I can imagine. It was also my shortest labor, and my hardest physically because the baby was in a weird position, but it was truly wonderful.

I did tons of research, read all the midwifery books I could find and did everything I could to prepare myself and my family. I had a wonderful CNM and a doula to attend the birth and had already had unmedicated births prior to this one so I knew what to expect.

I wanted a birth that my family was involved in, where my husband and I would be the first ones to hold our baby, where no one was yelling at me to push, where I could move around, eat, drink and bathe as desired and basically where my husband and I made the decisions about our baby, not some hospital board. That's exactly what I go with my homebirth. I am grieving the loss of that choice now that I am pregnant with my 7th baby. My midwife can no longer do homebirths, through no fault of her own but because her new team of doctor backups refuses to back them. I am angry and resentful that the choice has been taken from me and am really mouring the loss of another homebirth.

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Robertson on August 16, 2009 at 7:23pm

Tina, don't just give up hope... There may be other options out there for you. Check on Citizens for Midwifery, look up midwives, see if anyone in another area from yours might know of anyone closer to your area if you can't find one on your own. Try to find others in natural health, health food stores, La Leche league members, etc. Ask them, ask your Doula, Some states truly don't have midwives, but in some others they just might be hard to find. Good luck to you! You deserve the birth that is best for you and your family, and shouldn't have to give in to things you don't want if there is nothing medically necessary, for you to go to a hospital, just because your previous CNM is no longer able to help you. (((HUGS)))

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Permalink Reply by Andrea DeVany on May 14, 2009 at 11:04pm

It is wonderful to here everyone's experiences and reassures me as I make the decision to have a home birth for my fourth child.

I have had three hospital births in which I delivered naturally using the Bradley Method. As with many women, I had three very different experiences. With my first, I feel very fortunate to have had an amazing OB (Dr. Hoff) in Redwood City, CA. My labor was 50 hours in which I labored mostly in my neighborhood (I walked many blocks to try and help speed things along) on his advice. When I arrived in the hospital, they were extremely patient with me and totally respected my wishes of birthing naturally. My son, Gabriel, was posterior so back labor was quite excruciating. It took me 2 1/2 hours to go through transition and 2 1/2 hours of pushing to birth him. At one point I was passing out between contractions. Dr. Hoff suggested I have an IV of sugar water to regain my energy reassuring me that he wasn't going to put anything else in the IV. He also made many suggestions of different positions to try and help things along. I remember him sitting in the chair in the birthing room patiently waiting for me to progress. When Gabriel was born, Dr. Hoff told me to immediately lift him up to my chest (not him) as he carefully unwound the umbilical cord that was wrapped around his neck. I will always be thankful for Dr. Hoff because I feel in any other hospital situation, I would have most certainly had a C -Section.

With my second and third child, the experience was completely different. I had moved to Colorado and had to look for an OB. When I went to see a woman OB with my birth plan, her first comment was, "Well, I hope you wouldn't totally be opposed to an epidural because it is so much more of a beautiful experience for the mother". I stayed with the practice because the other OB was more naturally oriented. Luckily for me, I barely made in time to deliver Madeline in the hospital. However, once born they immediately put an oxygen mask on her because she looked a little blue (interestingly enough she was born with my sac intact). Also, they claimed she was a special needs baby because she was 8lbs 7ozs which according to them was too big!?! (I'm sure they got brownie points for increasing the bill to my insurance company)

With my third child, I truly learned not only what a money making business it is, but also how they try and make women who want to birth naturally try and fail. I went to my doctor (this time I ignorantly thought a family doctor would be more in tuned with a natural birth and would not want to intervene) 7 days after my due date. She immediately sent me to the hospital because I was high risk because I was a week overdue. I tried to reassure her that my previous two were also a week overdue and were both healthy and in the 8 pound range. However, they made me feel as if I was a neglectful parent if I did not get to the hospital immediately. Once there, the elderly nurse made me lie on my back to take the fetal heart rate. Of course my son's heart rate was going to be low because I was laying on my aorta artery (I think that's what it called), which is a big no no. They then made me have an ultrasound warning me he was going to be a 10 pound baby (keep adding up those fees). The doctor came in and said if I didn't go into labor within in hour she was going to induce me. Within minutes, I believe I put myself into labor and then I controlled the whole thing (except for the part where they insisted in putting an IV in me and I almost passed out). Sebastian was born 7 hours later at 8 pounds (not the 10 the ultrasound revealed). What I learned most from this experience was the power I had over my body and the birth of my son. After letting them try and control me, I took control and had the birth the way I wanted. Our mind is an amazing thing and it can truly control the body if we focus and concentrate on what the body is supposed to do.

With this pregnancy (5 years later), I have done a lot more research (thanks to this website and others) and am putting my faith into a direct entry midwife and will try and have the baby at home. I want to thank everyone for adding their stories because it further gives me confidence and trust that this is the best way to have a baby . . . and I can't wait!!

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Permalink Reply by Yvonne on May 15, 2009 at 2:04am

I am glad that I have a great OB who didn't go the drastic even with me carrying my second child for 42 weeks. She was comfortable in me =D And if the baby is ready, the body is ready ... then it will happen.

After the first child, I learn a lot. I didn't get an epidural and I don't want anyone to rupture my sac! ... I was annoyed that someone would ask me every 20 minutes for epidural ... now is the time if you need it ... I don't need it ... it wasn't that painful ... unlike the time I was about to die was cause I had this huge cyst inside my body ... so giving birth was nothing compared to that stupid ovarian cyst which made me rolled on the ground and I almost fainted. Giving birth is nothing like that. You are in control if you want to be. Who better to know your body then yourself.

You gotta know that those nurses or doctors are trained to ask you if you want epidural ... you do not need it ... a huge needle down your back ... and if that person didn't do it right more problem like infection or hit the spinal whatever and do some damage.

Good point that someone bought up about why would anyone want to go to a hospital to give birth since there are sick people etc. I guess it really didn't hit me. Now I think about if I were to have my 3rd child ... yes home birth it will be.

Have a great labor day to all the mommies!!! ... You have the power and the choice!!!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Morales on June 22, 2009 at 11:09am

My husband and I are trying to conceive our 3rd child now and I am very interested in a natural birth in a birthing center. I saw BOBB and I have been interested in the idea ever since my 2nd baby was born accidentally drug free. With my 1st baby I was sent home 3 times because I was not in active labor. So when I was in labor with my 2nd I was set that I was gonna labor at home till I just couldn't take it any more. Well I guess I handled it very well cause I gave birth to him after 20 mins of being at the hospital.No drugs, no IV, nothing. After that I realized that I could handle a natural birth. I would like to have my 3rd at home but we live 30+ miles from the closest hospital and that scares me a little. Also my little town EMTs cannot transport to the hospital. I do still have fears related to labor but I know the benefits far out weight the fears.

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